Background
There is increasing evidence that undergraduate students benefit from exposure to learning in a variety of different contexts. This is especially true in health professions education, where students are starting to learn about human interaction, communication, and the development of empathy as it relates to patient management. This assignment aims to provide you with an opportunity to think carefully about your own practice in the context of your health system, and how it may influence your thinking about practice and patient management. As part of this assignment, you will engage with students from a university that is very different from your own, and we hope this interaction will provide you with opportunities for deeper and more reflective thinking about your patients and their perceptions of healthcare and rehabilitation.
Instructions
- Find a photo of something that you think represents a “patient’s point of view” within your health system. This can be quite concrete (e.g. a literal view down a hospital corridor) or abstract (e.g. a broken object that’s been discarded). Obviously, during this time you will be unable to move around very much, and so you might need to look for photos that you’ve taken in the past. You should not download photos from the internet. Your photo should try to capture what it might be like to be that patient, taking into account the people, places and things that might influence how they interact with the system and with you.
Bring your photos to class and, in small groups, discuss the ideas you’re trying to capture in the pictures you took. What were you thinking about when you took the photos? What message are you trying to convey with the photo? What is the point of view you’re trying to express?After discussion with your peers choose one photo that, you think best represents the point you’re trying to make.While discussion of your photo with a peer or family member is likely to help you to improve your selection, we recognise that this might be more difficult for some of you than others. Try to discuss it if possible.- Write a short (about half a page) personal reflection on the picture, what it means, and why you chose it. What does this photo and reflection mean for patients in your health system? What services can they access? How do they experience physiotherapy and rehabilitation in this context.
- Add a short (half a page) “academic” section that brings “the evidence” into the piece, where you try to support your personal reflections with the literature. Your lecturers will provide you with resources by email
that will be shared on the project website. - Share your writing piece with a peer by email
using Google Drive. You will receive separate instructions on how to go about doing this.These posts will be private and only visible to students and lecturers involved in the project. - You will receive feedback on your photo and reflection from other students, and you will also give feedback to other students. Your lecturer will provide guidance on this process i.e. how to give useful feedback to each other.
- Use the feedback you receive from your peers to make further adjustments to your writing.
- (Optional, if possible) We will have a seminar in class after the final submission where you will work in small groups to discuss the assignment, together with the international component, and how it influenced your thinking about patients, and physiotherapy practice in other clinical and health contexts.
Due dates
May: Instructions sent to students (this document)
01 April – 01 July: Students complete the assignment
- 04 – 24th May: Choose photo, write short reflection and include articles.
- Submit the draft assignment by email to your peer by the 24th of May, who will provide you with feedback.
- Peers give each other feedback by email on the 4th of June
on the website (15th May) - Students refine their initial drafts using the feedback they received from their international peers.
- Final assignment is completed and submitted by the 29th of June.
